Design Principles for Achieving Integrated Healthcare Information Systems

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    Abstract

    Achieving integrated healthcare information systems has become a common goal for many countries in their pursuit of obtaining coordinated and comprehensive healthcare services. This article focuses on how a small local project termed ‘Standardized pull of patient data’ expanded and is now used on a large scale providing a majority of hospitals, general practitioners and citizens across Denmark with the possibility of accessing healthcare data from different electronic patient record systems and other systems. I build on design theory for information infrastructures, as presented by Hanseth and Lyytinen, to examine the design principles that facilitated this smallscale project to expand and become widespread. As a result of my findings, I outline three lessons learned that emphasize: (i) principles of flexibility, (ii) expansion from the installed base through modular strategies and (iii) identification of key healthcare actors to provide them with immediate benefits.
    Original languageEnglish
    JournalHealth Informatics Journal
    Volume19
    Issue number1
    Pages (from-to)29-45
    ISSN1460-4582
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 2013

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